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NEWS

Thursday, May 25, 2017

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

University chemists discover environmentally 
friendly method for creating semiconductor films

Team finds cheaper 
method of making 
component of nearly 
all electronic devices

By COLIN BERESFORD

Daily Staff Reporter

A team of chemists at the Uni-

versity of Michigan have devel-
oped a new method to create 
single-crystalline semiconductor 
films, a component of nearly all 
electronic devices. The team, led 
by Stephen Maldonado, associate 
professor of chemistry, invented 
a more environmentally-friendly 
and cheaper method to create 
semiconductor films.

Semiconductors are used to 

create lasers and LEDs due to the 
light they emit when they contain 
impurities, according to the web-
site of the University of Mary-
land’s School of Engineering. 
They are also used to fabricate 
solar cells because of their ability 
to absorb light and generate a cur-

rent.

The process discovered by the 

University of Michigan chem-
ists doesn’t use excess heat and 
doesn’t require the use of hazard-
ous gas. Instead, the team uses 
water at room temperature and 
easy-to-make equipment to cre-
ate the crystalline semiconductor 
films.

In 
an 
email, 
Maldonado 

detailed what inspired him and 
his group to develop this new 
method for creating semiconduc-
tors — emphasizing their interest 
in discovering “greener ways to do 
useful chemistry.”

“But another pertinent moti-

vation for this particular work 
is a desire to build upon a simple 
finding we came across several 
years ago,” Maldonado wrote. 
“We discovered serendipitously 
liquid metals are useful sol-
vents for semiconductor crystal 
growth even at room temperature. 
Accordingly, we have been really 
motivated to push this concept 
as far as possible, both for large 
materials (this work) and nano-
materials (other works of ours).” 

The method is more environ-

mentally friendly due to the lack 
of heat and hazardous gases.

“If you don’t have to input ener-

gy to generate high temperatures, 
low vacuums, or reactive precur-
sor molecules (gases), the energy 
cost and potential environmental 
impact of the process are nec-
essarily 
lowered,” 
Maldonado 

wrote.

Rackham student Daniel Bier, a 

student in the Erb institute, wrote 
in an email to the Daily he would 
want to reserve judgement on how 
much greener the newly devel-
oped method is, considering the 
number of factors that can affect 
the environmental impact of this 
technology.

“It’s easy to say that something 

is green, but to evaluate how 
much ‘greener’ this technology 
is, you should consider how this 
new approach will impact energy 
and material consumption across 
the supply chain,” he wrote. 
“This includes the environmental 
impact of purchasing new capital 
equipment to build the chips and 
the amount of energy and raw 

ZOEY HOLMSTROM/Daily

Trump speaks at a rally during his 2016 Presidential campaign.

materials involved in manufactur-
ing.”

Bier also said the change in 

impact could be very small and by 
making electronics cheaper, more 
could be thrown away.

“The biggest question for me is 

how ‘material’ is this new technol-
ogy from an environmental per-
spective: is the change in energy or 
material use significant, or just a 
few percentage points?” he wrote. 
“Would this make producing elec-
tronics so much cheaper that overall 
manufacturing volumes skyrocket, 
leading to devices becoming more 
disposable and ending up in land-
fills?”

How this discovery will change 

how semiconductors are created 
in the future and on a large scale 
is largely unknown, but has the 
potential to create waves in the 
electronics industry, Maldonado 
said.

“What we developed in our lab 

is properly best thought of as a pro-
totype,” Maldonado wrote. “We 
are (predominantly) not engineers 
in my group, so we have not been 
focused on the challenges of scale 

or designing a fabrication assembly 
line.”

The finding is incredibly impor-

tant in respect to how different it is 
from the traditional way to produce 
semiconductor films, Maldonado 
said. While the method needs more 
work, it has shown what is possible.

“I think they (the findings) are 

important because they demon-
strate a radically different way 
to make useful materials,” Mal-
donado said. “Basically, we use 
electrical energy to drive crys-
tallization rather than thermal 
energy. This work shows that 
with this concept you can take a 
raw oxidized source and directly 
convert it into a highly crystal-
line semiconductor. By playing 
with aspects of the system, we 
have shown that we can control 
exactly where and how crystal-
lization occurs.”

Maldonado is optimistic about 

the progress his team has made 
so far.

“We’re not there yet, but we’re 

a lot closer than I thought we 
would ever be before we started 
this work.”

this very topic in recent months. 
Sanchez-Ronquillo, 
who 
is 
a 

father of two, was acquitted from 
deportation in 2014 but detained 
again in April after requesting 
a stay, sparking protests from 
the Ann Arbor community. On 
Tuesday, 
community 
action 

resulted in a federal judge’s 
decision to delay the deportation.

Commissioner Conan Smith, 

who introduced the resolutions, 
said community mobilization has 
been crucial in work on the topic.

However, support for these 

resolutions and others like them 
have not been uniform.

During public hearing before 

the 
initial 
vote, 
Northfield 

Township Trustee Tawn Beliger 
said placing the interests of the 
undocumented 
was 
grounds 

for recalling an elected official, 
adding 
that 
taxpayer 
money 

would be better spent on fixing 
roads, as reported by MLive.

Additionally, the resolutions 

have been framed in response 

to actions of President Donald 
Trump’s 
administration 
— 

the resolution which calls on 
Congress to restrict deportations 
mentions the President explicitly 
— which may be disagreeable to 
those who voted for him in the 
2016 elections and support his 
policies. In Washtenaw County, 
this amounts to 26.5 percent of 
those who voted. 

Still, advocates maintain that 

making Washtenaw County a 
welcoming environment in such 
trying times is a worthy cause.

Margaret Rapai, an LSA senior 

and incoming president of the 
Michigan 
Refugee 
Assistance 

Program — which volunteers, 
advocates 
and 
educates 
on 

refugee issues — said such 
policies are important to ensuring 
the United States stays a place of 
hope for immigrants. MRAP is not 
specifically involved with support 
for undocumented residents, but 
according to Rapai, the goals of 
the resolutions are in line with 
theirs by creating communal 
support for newcomers.

IMMIGRATION
From Page 1

as a loss, seeing as the program 
has been deemed inefficient.

“A large portion of this budget 

cut comes from the reduction 
of the Supplemental Education 
Opportunity Grant, an outdated 
program 
that 
gives 
money 

directly to colleges as opposed 
to low-income students,” he said 
in a March interview. 

Cuts have also been made 

to the TRIO and GEAR UP 
programs, 
which 
serve 
to 

support 
low-income 
students 

and those from disadvantaged 
backgrounds. 
Seeing 
as 
the 

University has come under fire 
for low rates of socioeconomic 
diversity, LSA senior Rowan 
Conybeare, 
chair 
of 
the 

University’s chapter of College 
Democrats, said in a March 
interview 
the 
University’s 

diversity 
will 
be 
damaged 

without these programs.

TRUMP
From Page 1

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